When we first went fulltime 2-1/3 years ago, we kept California as our legal domicile. The primary reason we did this was because of health insurance coverage. At that time getting a PPO policy with national coverage was getting very difficult to find. Barbara was not yet at Medicare age and was grandfathered into a BC of CA PPO that had served us well. Having sold our CA house, we started using our son's address as a "residence" address for insurance, driver licenses, vehicle registrations, etc. At the beginning, we started using the Escapees Livingston TX mail service for our primary mailing/billing address. This past October when Barbara became eligible for Medicare we headed to Rapid/City/Box Elder SD to change our domicile state. Before we went to SD, we signed up with Escapees HOME SD service to obtain a street address in Box Elder. After a few very easy days we had re-registered our vehicles, obtained driver licenses, and set up new insurance policies in SD. Our legal domicile is now SD, but most all of our mail still goes to Livingston. We have no need or desire to return to SD during the winter! We may not be back for 2 or 3 years, depending on where we happen to travel. We happen to currently be back in CA visiting our son and seeing our doctors and dentists.
Art

Has anyone used an estate attorney in the Box Elder/Rapid City area that they liked and would recommend?
It's time to update our family trust anyway, and we could get it restated consistent with SD state law.
Thanks for any input,
Art and Barbara

JRP, Thanks for your comment. We are just in the process of submitting the application for Social Security benefits and Medicare and needed to know if the TX address would be accepted. Once we establish our SD domicile, we will be changing our vehicle registrations, driver's licenses, insurances, etc. to that state. I have no problem changing the address on record for Social Security to the new domicile address at that time. We do plan on using the Escapees SD address for legal domicile, but keeping our primary mailing address in TX.

Thanks Glenn!
Thanks Jack, that's good to hear.
I've had a Plan F supplement since I went on Medicare, and we will transition my wife from her current PPO to probably a Plan F and a Part D prescription plan. Our current legal domicile had remained in California, but we will be looking at supplements and Part D plans offered in any new domicile state.
Best,
Art and Barbara

We still had a house when I turned 65 and used that address for applying for my Social Security benefits and medicare. We are now fulltime and want to start SS benefits and medicare for my wife. We will also be changing our legal domicile to South Dakota around the same time, but don't have that setup yet. We will be keeping the Escapees Texas address as our primary postal address. Has anyone used the Livingston address as the residential address in a SS/Medicare benefit application? Was there any issue? We could use our son's address, but that is no more accurate than the Livingston address and he tends to move often.
Thanks for any input,
Art and Barbara

In reading on RV forums I get the impression that it is not recommended to try to carry a heavy motorcycle on less than a good sized tag-axle coach because of the leveraged weight. It is often recommended that instead you consider a motorcycle trailer.

Make sure that your insurance has decent coverage outside of Florida. So much insurance coverage these days is based on limited geographical networks of providers. It is getting hard to find insurance that has good nationwide benefits.
Art

My current understanding is that they are required, but if you are out of state they can be deferred until you re-enter Texas. I think it's only a few days that you have to be inspected once back in Texas.
Art

When we went full time about 2 years ago, we set up a mail forwarding account in TX with Escapees. Virtually all of our physical mail and packages go to that address. But in order to keep Barbara on her grandfathered PPO health insurance plan (when most other good options seemed to be disappearing), we opted to keep our legal domicile in California (using our son's address). Now that she is nearing Medicare age, we are reviewing our domicile options and SD is starting to look better. We would just as soon keep our primary mailing address at Escapees in TX, but establish a "residential" address using one of the SD services. Is anyone else using this split of addresses? Does anyone have any opinion on whether to use the Escapees SD satellite location or use America's Mailbox (both in Box Elder)? I know that with Escapees, mail still goes to the TX facility for forwarding. We would expect very few pieces of mail to show up in SD.
Art and Barbara

Be aware that all 4WD Jeeps that I know of cannot be towed on a dolly. Some of the Jeep drivetrains cannot be towed on a dolly or 4-down. Make sure to look in the owner's manual of any model being considered for information on recreational towing.

Thanks to all that responded. It helps me to think that I need to break more out of old habits as we turn full time. Since we have traveled a lot by RV, most of our finances and bills have been handled online already. We typically only write a handful of checks in a year. I have just not gotten around to setting up online bill paying with Merrill Lynch. We actually have Merrill Lynch debit cards that we don't use. We have BofA credit cards that are linked to the Merrill account and paid automatically each month. We need to seriously consider if we need to keep some separation between our day-to-day financial transactions and our investment accounts or fold all of it together.
Art

Hi,
We are expecting to make the transition to full timers this year. What banks have worked well for national coverage with a domicile address at Escapees in Livingston, TX? We have investments with Merrill Lynch, so BofA might make sense. Any experiences or pitfalls anyone can share?
Thanks for any help,
Art & Barbara Berggreen